Friday, February 1, 2008

I have been using JBoss for years now, and it was one of those servers which was so easy to setup, and get it running in a few minutes. Above all the deployment was so easy, copy and paste your ear/war in the deploy directory and you are done. Anything I wanted to learn, the first app server I used to choose was JBoss. I guess many developers agree with me on this, when you had to do something in J2EE world, the first thing anyone would try was JBoss.

I am not sure JBoss is dependable anymore. Especially with the current version JBoss 5. I know it's still in beta, but it has been there since 2006. Even the latest JBoss 5.0.0 Beta3 has many problems; especially with Java 6.

With all the problems with JBoss and having no clear cut idea when the final release is due, I had to look for other options. I am glad I did, and found Oracle and GlassFish working with just no problems at all.

When I did an interview with the authors of the book "JBoss in Action", they did mention that all the features in JBoss 5 were already available in later versions of JBoss 4.

To quote from the interview: Javid : The difficult thing about putting out a book is that it starts getting outdated even before it is published (it takes 3-4 months to go through editing / printing). By the time the book is released, JBoss AS 5 should be available. By the time an organization starts standardizing on it, they'll probably have a patch or two released. In all honesty, it *is* a bit of guesswork. But, the reason we feel confident making the recommendation is that many of the technologies that will be available in JBoss AS 5 are already running in the latest versions of JBoss 4 , or as independent applications. The problems that will likely arise with these technologies in JBoss AS 5 are likely to be integration issues, which will hopefully get resolved fairly quickly.

Peter : Many of the technologies that will appear in JBoss Application Server 5.0 are already available in other versions. EJB3, the JBoss Web Server which is based on the Tomcat and the Apache Portable Runtime, and JAX-WS based web services using JBoss Web Services are already available in 4.2. JBoss Messaging can be added to 4.2. So once 5.0 comes out, many of its components will have already been tested. And because 5.0 will be Java EE 5 certified, I expect that it will generate a lot of interest from the community.

When most of the features have been already tested on earlier versions, of course not on Java 6, what's the delay?

In spite of finding alternate solutions, I still would like to use JBoss 5. I guess old habits don't go away easily right?

What are your thoughts?Any ideas if we are going to get the final version in 2008 soon?

A new beta4 is coming out just around JBossWorld.It will be the first release with the new classloader layer being used - that's why another beta, since you probably don't want to push such a big change on CR1. ;-)

We were also able to fix most of the performance issues, so our boot time is again what we're used to see with previous 4.x versions.

The change with classloader layer is huge down the path, since it's gonna mean that we'll soon have full OSGi kind of CL notion.

Regarding the services, like it was already said, most of what you're gonna get already exists in 4.2.It's only that in 5.x, some of them will tightly use the new kernel features.

Like you've probably heard a couple of times, we've completely changed our micro kernel. A whole new project was introduced - Microcontainer. It replaces the old JMX based kernel, with a new POJO based. The legacy mbeans are of course still supported, tightly integrated with pojos through a new kernel. The deployers were also completely re-architected, introducing VDF (Virtual Deployment Framework) with VFS (Virtual File System), making them a lot more flexible than what we were used to. Splitting the deployment stages into fine grained aspects.You also get an OpenMBeans kind of feature with your deployments/services + ProfileService, meaning it's a lot easier to write some custom admin console.

And the AOP layer has been transparently put on top of pojos/services, also getting all the benefits of kernel being full blown dependency state machine - meaning aspect can have simple pojo dependencies.

So, you can now see why the long dev cycle. But be sure it's worth the wait.You're welcome to try the up-coming beta4, and I know there are people working hard to make it run smoothly on Java6 .

Thanks for the updates alesj. I am sure if all the problems we are facing with Java 6 and web services are fixed, developers will surely appreciate this version of JBoss as well.And yes, I will try the Beta4 also.

About Me

I have worked at various levels in the software industry since my graduation in 1987. I have several years of software programming experience around the globe, from Bangalore, India to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, to the United States. I have been working on JEE and .NET technologies exclusively for the last several years. Since joining Synopsys, have been working on all of CI/CD, DevSecOps, Secure SDLC activities such as code review, Threat Modeling, ARA, and training.
I am also very involved in the Java community. Several of my own book reviews, articles have been published by JavaLobby.